QoS - Exchange on MPLS

[johnny_5]

We recently went through a few upgrades at our CORP center, make a long story short we are seeing high bandwidth utilization and latency at remote branch locations when a user opens up their Outlook client to download their mailbox(caching mode is off by default).

The exchange backend sits at our CORP center which connects to our MPLS (50Mbps), the branch however only have a 6Mbps pipe to the MPLS. I've played around with applying a policy-map at the branch but I still see high utilization. Would one be better off applying a policy-map close the Exchange backend before it gets on to the MPLS or does anyone have any suggestions?

[Joseph W. Doherty]

If your equipment supports it, you should have a policy map at both the CORP site and branch sites, on devices sending traffic to MPLS. On the CORP side, you should also shape for the downstream branch bandwidth. If the aggregate of your branches can exceed 50 Mbps, you may need to shape there too.

If your WAN MPLS is 3rd party, you might also investigate what QoS feature they support, if any.

[johnny_5]

We only have currently a policy-map across all locations is 40% for VOIP traffic. Our WAN MPLS provider is using standard QoS markings.

So if I understand you correctly(we wanted to use 20% of the line for Exchange traffic) I would implement a policy-map at a remote location with a bandwidth of 6mbps using the following:

ip access-list extended EXCHANGE

 permit ip any host Exchange_Servers
 

class-map EXCHANGE
 match access-group name EXCHANGE

policy-map QoS_OUT
 class EXCHANGE
 police 1200000 conform-action transmit exceed-action drop

On the CORP location use something similar with 20% of the 50mbps line used for Exchange traffic?

[Joseph W. Doherty]

" Our WAN MPLS provider is using standard QoS markings."

Oh, what standard, the RFC? What exactly do they do per marking.

What are your devices, and their IOS versions, being used both at CORP and your branches. Could you post what you're using now, for policies, on both sides?